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Have a Flik 266, non HTS and 4 vents, loaded .73. I have had issues with the flare over the past 50ish jumps. Tried a few different things but seemed to keep pounding myself in. 2 nights ago while jumping a B with 4 other people with Fliks of different sizes I noticed that I sank like a rock in comparison to the others. None had HTS. I barely made the LZ while others were sinking in to prevent overshooting.

Anyone out there noticed anything like this? Will HTS help this? Should I look to different canopies?

could be a case of shitty pilot...but I have no idea, I wasnt there

projekt9,

I have two FLiK 266 canopies with no HTC and 4 vents. One of them is brand-new-off-the-shelf. The other has roughly 50 jumps. If you want me to measure anything on those canopies, let me know. I'd be happy to take some measurements and send you numbers.

Cheers,

Chris

> Tried a few different things...

What have you tried?

Do you have four or five upper control lines?

Are you using the factory toggle settings?

How many jumps on the canopy in total?

tell us how you really feel

Menace, you weren't there because you exited after me and soared over me. I don't like you, but I do like your t-shirt designs... so I will continue to jump with you.

Tom - Canopy has about 110 jumps on it total. Been wet only one before - fresh water. Dried immediately out of sun. I have 4 upper control lines. I am flying with the factory brake setting which was fine for me 'out of the box.' I have gone through various canopy drills to learn the controls. I can fly easily in full flight (i.e. no brake input) with my arms all the way up. I can sink the canopy in great when I am flying in very deep brakes/stall. As far as I know the brake settings are good. I think it is a glide issue and not a break issue. But what the f do I know?

I have a flik 266, all F1-11, 4/7 vtec, loaded at 0.70.
I have about 150 jumps on it now, maybe 20 of which are slider up. I haven't noticed a change in the flare/glide over its lifespan (not to say it hasn't changed though).

The thing that has changed noticeably is the stall point. The factory deep brake setting had historically always worked well for me, but recently it had been stalling a lot on opening (slider down), like belly to sky and feeling like i'm falling backward. My wing loading hasn't changed and i've never experienced this issue before so i'm not sure what is causing it. I recently switched to the factory shallow brake setting and it doesn't stall during opening any more. The only things i can think of are the lines have gone out of trim or the fabric has increased in permeability, but i never hear of base canopies being out of trim; i always thought dacron was pretty stable? Anyone ever have any lines out of trim? Also i wouldn't have guessed ~20 SU jumps would shrink the brake lines much regardless of material? I guess measuring the lines is the only way to be sure though...

In comparison, i have a flik 254 ultralite, all ultralite F1-11, 3/7 vtec, 400 pound dacron lines, loaded 0.72. I have about 45 jumps on it, about 25 slider up. I typically jump both rigs back to back on a slider down object and I much prefer the 254 over my 266. It seems to do everything better. When the canopy opens the ultralite has better heading performance though i cannot explain why (the pack job is different between the two so that could be a factor). The ultralite responds better upon releasing the brake setting, the 266 seems to be more mushy regardless of whether it was set in deep or shallow. Once they are in full flight, i want to say the ultralite has better glide based on where the two land (the ultralite tends to travel further), but there are no doubt lots of factors (the opening differences for example) that influence this so i don't feel confident comparing this. The ultralite also seems to have slightly more flare power, though not definitively so. I have definitely noticed that the ultralite canopy is more difficult to stash if air gets trapped in it, the 266 deflates more readily going into the stash bag.

Projekt9, how many jumps do you have on your flik?

You are using factory brake settings? Or factory toggle settings? Or both?



I don't think the brake settings are going to matter. The issues are all happening after you pop the toggles, right?

Are you are in full flight (no tension on the toggles) when you are experiencing the poor glide?

Have you inspected your vtec covers?

Some of those issues sound like the old uncovered (2-way) vtec. Is it possible one of your covers is damaged and letting air flow out of the canopy's bottom skin when toggle input is applied?

That's a good question, i will check and report back.
Thanks.

You may want to call Todd at Apex. Some Fliks built between '07 and '09 had pre-mature line shrinkage. APex issued a recall on said canopies to have the lineset changed. If you bought the canopy used it could be from that lot.

The main culprit of lines shrinking as far as i thought was from the slider... hence skydiving canopies its usually the outer lines that shrink/break first.

Wasn't the Apex call back due to all the A lines actually stretching?

I dont know, long timeago i vaguely remember it.

i don't have a Flik. it was a zp black jack.

let me jump it, i'll tell you if it's you or the canopy.

Pretty sure it was soaked after that dam jump as well...

Maybe if eat more mcdonalds it will help your glide

Sell the Flik and buy a Rock Dragon. The things you refer to as 'flare' and 'glide ratio' will become a long distant memory.

It was about 1 or 2 years ago. As I understood it a "lot" of linesets installed on canopies for about a 6 month period were prone to shrinkage or stretching. It was a free recall depending on canopy S/N. A canopy being out of trim will definitely make it handle like he's describing. If he didn't buy it new, it definitely wouldn't hurt to check it out with Todd or Steve.

So i measured my lines and i think they are good.
The following are my average trims with the factory specs in parentheses:

baseline: 139.4 (140.5)
A-B: 3.0 (3.5)
A-C: 10.8 (10.5)
A-D: 22.8 (23)
A-Br1: 19.7 (18) - factory shallow
A-Br2: 15.1 (14.25) - factory deep

I'm not sure if i measured the brake lines in the correct spots (or the others for that matter). I've never measured a canopy before so i don't know what i'm doing. I measured from the inside of the loops on each end with the lines tensioned to 10 pounds using a fish scale. I'm at least confident that the A-B-C-D trim is good.

I also did a thorough inspection of the fabric paying particular attention to the vents. I climbed in each cell holding it up to light. Other than a few tiny holes and wear spots here and there everything looked fine to me.

So i guess i'll continue packing it in shallow brakes.

If that was his problem I think he would have noticed it before now. The recall you mentioned was a result of coloured dacron lines stretching drastically (several inches) in very few jumps or even a single jump. The reason Apex had to make the recall is because at that time they were using black dacron as standard on all their line sets and the center A lines were stretching way out. Atair wasn't as greatly affected as Stane recommends white dacron as standard on his canopies. The problem is one of the downsides of the dying process and still manifests itself from time to time on coloured dacron (black or red) regardless of manufacturer.